House rules

[Scott-A]

So, what house rules are you folk using, or thinking of using?

Here’s the ones that I am thinking of using for an upcoming HQ2 game:

• High rolls resolves tied level of success, Heroquest: Glorantha style
• Rename individual roll outcomes: Fumble < Weak < Strong < Crit. This avoids terminology overlap between roll-success and outcome-success, and it’s easier to explain why a strong roll might beat another strong roll.
• Rename “minor” victory/success to just “victory/success” or if pressed “normal victory/success”
• The ace rule: A natural 1 counts as both 1 and 20, as best benefits the roller. So a natural 1 crit will almost always beat out a bumped mastery crit. This does mean that a really bumped fumble could tie with a natural 1, which I’m cool with

Any thoughts or comments on those? And again, curious about other people’s house rules.

[Harald Smith]

I’m using the HQ:G high rolls win rule. Made sense to me and seems to be working fine so far.
I’m fine with Fumble/Fail/Success/Critical.
Haven’t worried about the progression of victory types so far. I tend to just describe the effects that seem appropriate (but still early in our HQ2 game as well, so maybe will change over time).
No other house rules adopted so far.

[Phil Nicholls]

Hi Scott,

As a GM fond of tinkering, after 100+ game of HQ I find myself using all sorts of House Rules. Many are focused on the narrative, but some a more mechanical in nature.

Biggest of all was the feeling that Base rises too quickly, so I slowed that process down. I also limited the expenditure of XP, fearing Players would game the system too much.

My Keywords are narrower, with limited number of breakout abilities, and I added Flaws that the GM can invoke, in exchange for an additional ability. There are more, smaller changes, but it may all change again when I finally get my hands on HQG.

I do like the idea of the perfect critical of a natural one. I may have to borrow that idea.

All the best
Phil

[Author]

Posts